Bill,
I built that boat as my first project also, using Home Depot luan. It was easy to work with and in at least one spot it was not flexible enough (you can see that area by the arrow shaped workaround I used) so I personally would not apply a layer of glass prior to stitching the panels together in the cradles, it just isn't necessary. My boat is very strong and it was built exactly like the article but with luan in lieu of Okoume. I linked my site below where you can find some building pictures. I filleted all joints, used tape inside and out, clothed the interior of the cockpit area and clothed the entire exterior. The bulkheads are filleted and taped in place but the surface of the bulkheads are just coated with unthickened epoxy. The coaming riser and lip are filleted and fully clothed. Good luck with the project and have a blast!

--Tony

PS: I made one big assumption when I built my boat and that was that luan would look ugly and that my workmanship would be so horrible that I would need to paint the boat anyway. Now, I didn't do the fine quality work I've seen on this site but I now realize that if I had paid closer mind to my luan I could have had a much better looking boat to leave in a clear, natural state. My neighbor built a luan canoe and used a very light luan and he was very meticulous with it. His canoe is very nice looking. You can find a picture of it on the Pocaty link at the very bottom of my page.

: I'm getting ready to start building my first boat. I'm planning to use 1/8
: luan and 4.24 oz glass to build the Greenland style kayak designed by
: Christopher Cunningham. From reading this forum I see that 1/8 luan can be
: floppy to build with so I'm thinking of cutting out all of the hull pieces
: and applying a layer of glass on the insides of them, letting it cure and
: stitching it together. After it's in the cradles I plan to fillet and tape
: the seams. On the outside of the hull I'm thinking of one layer of glass
: with a double layer on the bottom two panels. I plan to glass both the
: inside and outside of the deck with a second layer under the coaming area
: (both sides of the bulkheads too). Does this all sound like a good idea?
: I've read a lot of the posts on this forum and have found it to be a real
: goldmine of ideas and advice.